If you haven’t been able to tell, it’s a pretty big gosh darn deal that we are on The List.

So what exactly is this mysterious List?

It’s not an exclusive VIP list for admittance through the backdoor of a hot night club.

It’s not a to-do list or a grocery list where we can cross things off.

It’s not a Top Ten List that will be read on Dave’s late night show.

No, it’s not that fun. It’s just a waiting list. It’s The Waiting List.

Our agency has one waiting list, and everybody who has a fully approved dossier is on it. That means we’re on the same list as people who are requesting a baby boy or a 2-year-old girl. When our agency gets an orphan(s) from the Ethiopian government, it goes to the first person on The List requesting the characteristics (age, gender, health, etc) of that child. This means you can get a child before you are #1 on The List. It also means you can be #1 on The List and watch many couples get children before you do.

Right now, there are just over 50 people on The List. There are approximately 13 couples requesting young siblings.

Our weekly emails from the agency include any referrals that were given that week, so we can sort of track things. If we see a young sibling set referred, we can guess that we’re moving up. But it is truly a guessing game because there are so many variables.

For example, if there is a couple behind us that is open to siblings 6 and younger, and the agency gets those kids, they would go to the couple behind us while we remain on The List since we are requesting younger kids. If a couple in front of us decides they want a single child instead of siblings, we would stay at the same spot on The List, but would have less people in front of us requesting siblings. If a couple in front of us is referred a sibling set and then one of the children dies (horrible, happens rarely, but happens), we would stay in the same place on The List, not move up.

There are hundreds of different situations that can happen. We don’t know the details of the other families on The List and are told not to play the guessing game. But it’s going to be impossible not to. I understand that I will know nothing for certain, but it will help to give us a general idea.

Ethiopian adoption has only become a strong program in the past few years. When it started, our agency got a lot of siblings and they received fewer last year. If you’re the praying type, please join me in praying that young sibling referrals shoot through the roof this year!

This is a blog about a novice teacher's experiences, insights, failures, and successes in the classroom. Hopefully, it will comfort those who are going through similar experiences and offer an avenue for master teachers to impart their wisdom about this terrifying and yet rewarding career.